This morning I finished reading Jim Butcher’s Cold Days (2012), the 14th book in “The Dresden Files” series.

Chicago’s resident wizard, Harry Dresden, is back from the dead. He’s also now the Winter Knight serving the often cruel Winter Queen Mab, and has to figure out what to do since everyone he’s ever known thinks he’s literally six feet under.

Spoiler Alert: This review’s loaded with them so if you haven’t read the novel and want to be surprised, stop here. I will say that the book is well worth your time as are all the others in the series.

Anyway…

Dresden undergoes a long convalescence in the heart of the Winter Queen’s realm Arctis Tor being nursed back to health by the beautiful yet vulnerable Sarissa, a member of that court (she plays a surprisingly big role at the end of the story). After being terrorized by Mab every day (part of his treatment plan), a birthday celebration in his honor turns into a nightmare where he makes enemies of some of the court including Maeve, the seductive and sadistic Winter Lady, Mab’s daughter. Then Mab gives Harry his first command as her Knight, kill the immortal Maeve.

Hip deep in trouble already, Harry returns to Chicago with the help of a surly and lethal servant called Sith Cat. He finds Bob and steals him from the M.E. Butters who is now living with a very sexy werewolf and learns that it is possible to kill an immortal, but only on Halloween; possible not easy.

Harry learns from his rapport with the island/living being Demonreach that A) Harry has something in his head that will explode unless he can get his apprentice Molly to do something about it, B) that Demonreach is really a prison for a ton of supernatural baddies and Harry is the Warden, and C) that there is going to be an imminent attack on Demonreach and if the supernatural baddies are released, Chicago and the rest of the Midwest is going to be destroyed.

On top of that, Harry is on the hit list of a bunch of Fae related characters including Redcap, Ace, and a ton of dark little fairy folk.

As in all the other Dresden novels, Harry never has just one problem to solve, he has a really big main problem and then a half-dozen or so other lethal problems that just get in the way and may or may not be related.

Oh, Harry discovers a group of creatures called the Outsiders have been trying to invade the Fae and Earth realms for a while now and if they do, it’s another really bad thing.

He still has the problem of convincing his allies, friends, and family that he’s really alive. That includes the aforementioned Butters and Molly as well as his half-brother vampire Thomas and his friend and would-be lover Karrin Murphy.

The problems multiply and multiply but as is also true of each successive book, Harry’s power just keeps growing. The mantle of the Winter Knight adds to that power but it also seduces him into becoming more predator-like. In fact, as Mab reveals to him at the end of the book, what he did to Molly, even before becoming the Winter Knight, wasn’t exactly kind. Harry just lacked the self-awareness to see what was happening.

Did I mention this thing called the Adversary that infects minds and turned even evil people more evil?

Then there’s Toot-Toot and his gang of pizza loving fairies, Molly’s new digs, and “uncomfortable” encounters with the Summer Knight, Lily, the Summer Lady, and the Faerie Mothers.

As always, Harry manages to avert the main disaster but at a cost, this time in the lives of people, both to death and to life-changing events. Molly especially goes through a major transformation that I won’t share here, but it’s dramatic to say the least.

There were a few holes, which surprised me.

Sith Cat was left at the bottom of Lake Michigan along with the battle with the Outsiders and the Hunt. The Hunt (on Harry’s side temporarily) won, but Sith Cat never returned. Either that was a mistake or he’ll be back in the next novel (or somewhere down the line).

Over and over, Harry complains that he has none of his magical items, mainly because he hasn’t had time to make them. But just once, the book talks about Harry using his staff, which, as I said, he hadn’t remade, had no opportunity to grab during the battle, even if it existed, and then there’s no further mention of it.

At one point, Mab heals Mac (the proprietor of Harry’s favorite pub) by reaching inside of him and removing a bullet. The problem is that none of the Fae can touch metal as it is harmful to them. How was she able to do that?

Near the climax of the book, Harry has to go through a barrier to reach the lighthouse and cottage at the center of the island Demonreach. Only he can do it since he’s considered part of the island, and even his clothes don’t go through because they aren’t of the island. Harry arrives on the other side totally nude. However, earlier Butters put a dressing on a wound on Harry’s leg and somehow, the dressing, which is also not part of the island, made it. How?

Early in the book, Demonreach warns Harry that he has something in his head that will explode SOON and that Molly can fix it. This is never mentioned again until the very end. Harry stays on the island where Demonreach can hold it at bay.

If someone said my head was about to explode and I’d been interacting with my apprentice who could save me throughout the entire novel, I might have spared five minutes to ask her to take a look at it. Harry never did.

I know no creative work is perfect, but Butcher must have been having an off-year to let those slip through.

All that said, Cold Days is another spectacular Harry Dresden novel and I recommend both it and the entire series.